THE Justice Secretary is open to introducing additional safeguards if the requirement in Scots law to have evidence from two separate sources is abolished for criminal cases.

But Kenny MacAskill insisted the centuries old rule of corroboration must be scrapped, as it had "failed" Scotland and prevented cases from being brought to court.

The Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill, which is going through Holyrood, plans to change the law so two separate sources of evidence are no longer required for someone to be convicted of a crime.

The legislation has been put forward by the Scottish Government after one of Scotland's top judges, Lord Carloway, carried out a review which recommended the controversial change.

While ending the requirement for corroboration has been opposed by many in the legal profession, the Justice Secretary argued: "This is a long overdue step in ensuring victims have access to justice."

He said he was in "complete agreement" with Lord Carloway that the requirement for corroboration should be abolished.

Mr MacAskill said Lord Carloway had "rigorously reviewed" the system before coming to his recommendation, with the Government then carrying out a consultation on his report and a second consultation on what safeguards should be brought in.

As a result of this, the Justice Secretary said the Bill also proposed to increase the majority of jurors who need to agree on a guilty verdict from eight to 10.

Mr MacAskill told MSPs at Holyrood: "I remain open to deliberating whether further safeguards are needed as the Bill progresses."

But he insisted the requirement for corroboration must go.

"The law on corroboration has been debated for the last three years. At no point has anyone identified another system operating a general rule for corroboration," Mr MacAskill said.

"The requirement is regularly invoked as guarding against miscarriages of justice, but Lord Carloway could find no evidence to suggest it does anything of the sort. Instead, he found evidence the other way - specifically, that it stops our courts from hearing cases that would be tried elsewhere.

"Put simply, the requirement for corroboration has failed Scotland. It was formulated in a different age. Before matters such as DNA or CCTV. Times have changed."

He went on: "Corroboration in our legal system is a barrier to obtaining justice for the victims of crimes committed in private or where no-one else was there."

While he said ending the need for corroboration would not be "a panacea" for resolving the difficulties in prosecuting sexual offences, where there are often no witnesses, Mr MacAskill added: "At the very, very least, abolition of the requirement for it will allow crimes committed in private, where the complainer has suffered in silence, or behind closed doors, to be brought to court. That can only be a step forward."

He said: "Having identified this barrier for vulnerable victims in accessing justice, we must now act. We must abolish the requirement for corroboration. In a modern society it is simply not acceptable for victims to be left to suffer in silence and for justice not to be delivered."

But he stated: "I remain open to constructive debate on how best to achieve this reform and any additional safeguards."

Mr MacAskill spoke out after Tories used a Holyrood debate to highlight opposition to the change.

Justice spokeswoman Margaret Mitchell said corroboration was "at the very heart of the Scottish criminal justice system" as she said High Court judges, the Law Society of Scotland, the Faculty of Advocates and the Scottish Human Rights Commission were all against its abolition.

She told Mr MacAskill: "The fact that no other jurisdiction has the requirement for corroboration is not in itself a reason to support its abolition."

The Conservative argued that a wider review of the laws of evidence should be carried out, either by the Scottish Law Commission or a public inquiry.

Ms Mitchell said: "Despite the overwhelming view of the judiciary that corroboration should not be abolished, this is not the same as saying corroboration is not capable of improvement, being modernised and changed for the better."

The SNP MSP who will lead the scrutiny of proposals to abolish corroboration challenged Mr MacAskill's claim that the Carloway Review was "thorough".

Christine Grahame, convener of Holyrood's Justice Committee, vowed to abstain from the SNP-administration's view that the proposal is based on a "thorough and independent review of Scots criminal law".

She was also unimpressed with the other parties' contributions to the debate, calling Ms Mitchell's demand for a public inquiry "inappropriate" and Labour's contribution "superfluous".

The Tory bid to remove proposals to scrap corroboration from the Bill were backed by the Liberal Democrats, while other SNP and Labour members of the Justice Committee took a "mibbes aye, mibbes naw" approach and called for further scrutiny.

Ms Grahame said: "I think the Conservative motion is correct to indicate that corroboration cannot and should not be examined and evaluated in isolation. I am sympathetic to a wider review, however the call for a public inquiry is inappropriate.

"The Government amendment also presents a difficulty for me in parts as I cannot accept that the Carloway Review was 'thorough'. Firstly, it is Lord Carloway's proposal alone. Secondly, it was not thorough."

Lord Carloway (Image: PA)

The Carloway Review sampled 141 sexual cases and concluded that 67% would have been successfully prosecuted without corroboration.

Ms Grahame said: "Who came to that view? Two prosecutors, one active and one retired. That's it. I cannot say that that is a rigorous examination of evidence."

Liberal Democrat justice spokeswoman Alison McInnes said: "I don't defend corroboration because of tradition, I defend it because it protects against miscarriages of justice, false accusations, wrongful convictions, and the erosion of the presumption of innocence. You cannot remove this pillar of our justice system without making the whole structure unstable."

Speaking for Labour, Justice Committee vice-convener Elaine Murray said: "I don't think this is an issue that Parliament should take a decision on based on less than 90 minutes debate.

"The Justice Committee will take evidence in two sessions in November and December, and it is at the end of stage one that this decision should be taken."

SNP committee member Sandra White said: "Margaret Mitchell's motion is a little bit lost. It is putting the cart before the horse.

"We're at stage one of a committee debating all of these factors, and yet here we have a motion for debate in a very short time. I think we should have more time for that, and I look forward to hearing from witnesses such as the Cabinet Secretary, Lord Advocate and various other groups. Surely they're the people that will give us the evidence to make up our minds."

Labour committee member John Pentland said: "Is corroboration an integral part of our centuries old law? If it is and it's not broke why fix it? Is corroboration a barrier to prosecution as an archaic aspect of the legal system? Mibbes aye, mibbes naw. Mibbes we should listen to the evidence."